Art Opening

An extensive art collection was the reason for a simple interior design

Slide 1 Of Art Opening

Bruce Buck

Passionate art collectors, Anita Nagler and Robert Moyer were walking the dog in their east-side Chicago neighborhood when they spotted an artistic masterpiece they couldn’t resist. “With the old bricks, stonework, and a tree-filled courtyard, it felt like something you’d see in Europe or New Orleans,” Anita says.

The house had been built in 1880 as a brick one-and-a-half-story Victorian cottage, with a bay window and front door that faced the street. In 1948, it was converted into the Hudson Studios, apartments where artists could work and live. The front bay was sheared off, gables and pitched rooflines were eliminated and replaced by flat roofs, and the front door and windows were bricked over. The main entrance was shifted to the side, so the building looked into a courtyard shared by a neighboring house, which was also divided into studios and apartments.

In 2000, a developer began returning the buildings to single-family dwellings. “What made the houses unique was that there was a courtyard in between them,” says David MacKenzie, a Chicago architect who worked with the developer, and later with Anita and Robert, to finish the spaces. “Instead of a typical Chicago rowhouse right on the sidewalk, here you enter from the side adjacent to the courtyard.” The main entrance is on the second-level terrace, near the tower-like structure.

Anita Nagler and Robert Moyer kept the lines and materials of the staircase simple: steel posts and a wood railing. Rather than following the walls, the stairs are built on an angle so they look like sculpture. “We wanted them to have a floating quality,” Robert says.

The couple’s extensive art collection was a key factor in keeping the interior design simple. “I wanted the living room to feel like an art gallery,” Robert says. “We left the quarter round off the trim to give it less detail. We wanted a lofty, more gallery kind of feel.”

MacKenzie gave them a nearly 20x30-foot living room, with dark wood floors and long stretches of white walls for displaying paintings and sculptures. “The living room is the most important location for their artwork, so we really kept that room almost minimal,” the architect says. “There’s some pattern and interest going on with the furniture, but it’s deliberately gallery-like.” Sight lines from one end of the house to the other also make art visible from different angles and distances. “The fact that you can see the library from the kitchen is one of the things I love,” Anita says. “The sight lines of this house are incredible.”

Interior designer Eva Quateman created two seating areas in the living room with matching striped upholstered chairs in shades of taupe, charcoal, and brown. “I wanted the furniture to be beautiful, but I didn’t want it to be the show. I wanted it to kind of disappear so it wouldn’t fight with the art,” she says. Two abstract paintings hang above a living room sofa. “Those are the only pieces of art we bought with a specific purpose in mind,” Anita says.

Next to the living room is the light-filled library with a new limestone fireplace and 18-foot-high ceilings. MacKenzie’s original drawings called for a bedroom above the library, but Anita and Robert eliminated the upper level to maximize light from two huge windows. MacKenzie designed the asymmetrical limestone fireplace surround to accommodate an existing chimney and create equal space on either side for bookshelves. Above the fireplace, crotch-mahogany panels are arranged in a flame-like pattern. “That whole elevation was meant to add a lot of texture and interest to the room,” MacKenzie says.

Designer Eva Quateman had the dining room walls and ceiling painted persimmon. “The color gives the room richness and intimacy,” she says. Plush red velvet draperies warm the large window, and panels of decorative Higgins glass hang in the two smaller windows. “We burn candles behind them at night and they really glow,” Anita says. The room is furnished with Frank O. Gehry chairs around a traditional James Jennings dining room table, all from the homeowner’s previous house. “I think it’s actually more interesting to have the old and the new,” Anita says. Floors in the foyer and dining room are a blue-green slate.

Large windows flood the foyer with light and provide a sunny stage for a metal sculpture by artist Brian Alexander. The front door dates to when the building was divided into several artists’ apartments and is embellished with wood blocks carved by the resident artists.

The living room and library occupy what was the original Victorian house. The other rooms were added over the years when the house was converted into artists’ apartments and then returned to a single-family home.